I recently drove to the Co-op Food Store in Lebanon. Waiting to make the turn into Centerra, I saw a large sign across the intersection.
I couldn’t make out everything it said, but a glimpse told me what I needed to know: A large tractor, with a sizeable wagon attached, was parked on the shoulder. Next to it was a man with no shirt gesturing and shouting wildly at passing cars. Affixed to the side of the wagon was a handmade sign: “No Vax! You Can’t Tell Me What to Do!”
“Ah, yes,” I thought, sadly. “Another one of those,” and I continued on with my grocery mission.
Later that day, I began to imagine a conversation with the man who felt so strongly about his position that he wanted to announce it to the world on Route 120.
How would such a conversation unfold? Would he spew the same misinformed rants about not wanting to put poisons into his body?
Would he invoke his right as a U.S. citizen to make his own choices without government interference? Yes, I’m sure he would cover those points. And I felt tired and sad, because I knew that nothing I could say would change his mind.
Just the same, I would have liked to say, “Sir, although I don’t agree with you on vaccines, you do have the right to question whether anyone can tell you what to do. So why aren’t you out here protesting because our state government is telling us we’re not allowed to teach our children about injustice in our country? Why aren’t you screaming about the right to vote being restricted all across the country? And why aren’t you raging against the grim fact that women in this country soon may no longer have the right to make decisions about their own bodies?”
But I think I know what his answers would be.
The trouble is, we’re never going to agree on answers until we agree to accept the same truths. We seem to be farther than ever from that now.
DONNA GRANT REILLY
Hanover
I am a retired physician. I have had a book published by Chelsea Green Publishing (The Bread Builders, 1999). I am immunocompromised by medical treatment, did not develop antibodies after vaccination, and am at significant risk of dying if I contract COVID-19.
Aside from my personal actions (distancing, masking), only the actions of the greater community (vaccination, masking) can reduce that risk. I am gobsmacked and revolted to learn, in Alex Hanson’s Book Notes column, that my publishing company released a book this year by Joseph Mercola, who has been identified as a major source of coronavirus misinformation (“COVID conspiracies published in our backyard,” Aug. 15).
The kind of medical misinformation spread by Mercola is not benign. It is malignant. Science is not always correct, but it is self-correcting and, ultimately, honest. That is why I stand up for science.
DANIEL WING
Corinth
Send the Army
to help Haiti
I woke Monday morning listening to NPR news — a steady 90 minutes of lamenting the “sudden” and “completely unexpected” fall of Kabul. Republicans blaming President Joe Biden, the U.S. military just days ago telling us that Kabul might fall in a month or so, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken assuring us that this is not like Saigon in 1975.
How short our memories are. In late 2019, TheWashington Post reported on a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction that our then-18-year mission in Afghanistan was a miserable failure, with no evident strategy, supporting a thoroughly corrupt government, and an Afghan army and security force that consisted of thousands of “ghost” personnel.
Turn to today: the capital falls in a day, soldiers and police run from their posts, and the Afghan president flees for parts unknown.
Unexpected? I think inevitable.
Here’s an idea. Since the media seems to have forgotten, on Saturday the nation of Haiti was again devastated by a catastrophic earthquake and is now dealing with a tropical storm. Thousands more Haitians will likely die. Let’s send the U.S. Army there to help our brothers and sisters — a place that might actually want us to show up.
FRANK LAMSON
South Royalton
Thank you for your incisive article on compostables and their conundrums (” ‘Compostable’ not as easy as it sounds: Capacity, contamination, consumers complicate packaging trend,” Aug. 13). I also noticed that the article and the photographs were produced by the paper’s Report for America corps members. Extra kudos to the Valley News, and the whole program, for keeping local journalism alive and healthy.
This is exactly the kind of reporting we need, that which explains the effect our individual, everyday choices have on our neighbors, our community, our local waste streams and, ultimately, the whole world.
I have long wondered about how truly compostable all these “all-too-convenient” single-use containers are, but never took the initiative to try to find out myself — and I suspect that mission might’ve been a rabbit-hole of murkiness and misinformation, anyway.
Thanks again for shedding some light on the subject.
Keep it up please. Articles like this create a positive feedback loop that improve our community, and in turn make the Valley News an ever-more valuable key in that community.
GRETCHEN STOKES
Hanover